Alice Springs Hospital is a breastfeeding
hospital. It receives extra funding to ensure that all mothers leave knowing
how to breastfeed and all babies leave being able to breastfeed. This is mainly
because Alice Springs Hospital services all communities and towns (all with
majority indigenous populations) within a 2000 square kilometre radius of Alice
Springs. Many of these communities are run by generator power, if they have
power at all, & so bottle feeding would be slightly problematic. In these
cases it is best that the mother & baby leave hospital being able to feed. The
large area that Alice Springs Hospital covers also means that the staff are
experienced in numerous high risk pregnancies and deliveries.

I had always intended on trying to breastfeed
but with the wisdom of my friend’s recent experiences with breastfeeding &
certain midwives & lactation consultants, I knew that I wasn’t going to
kill myself doing it. My mental & physical health and the baby’s mental
& physical health came first.

Right after the birth (Monday 20th,
two weeks early) we tried to breastfeed. It seemed to work ok, but she lost
interest after a while, which is fair enough, she’d been through a fair bit in
the previous hours, but it became clear over the next day (Tuesday) that she
really wasn’t interested in breastfeeding. The lactation consultant had been
successful in getting her to feed but she refused to stay latched on. The
rewards were too few for so much work. She’d go all red & scream & the
lactation consultant would force her head onto my breast. Then she’d pull off
& scream more & the process would be repeated. Meanwhile it hurt like
hell. They really should give you painkillers. That night the midwife used a
syringe to suction off expressed milk & we fed her with that.

Wednesday morning repeated the similar
pattern, red face, screaming, head forcing, pulling off, repeat. While I took a
shower the lactation consultant weighed her and found that she had already lost
more than 10% of her body weight. In order for her to gain back the weight
before her official day three weigh in the next day, we started her on formula
through a tube attached to my boob. She latched properly for this as the
formula flowed free & easy.After
each feeding I expressed for ten minutes with the double electric breast pump.

Thursday she had maintained her weight &
although the loss was just below 10%, the doctors decided to continue with the
formula boob tube & not have her admitted to the nursery & fed through
her nose. That morning was also back to trying to breastfeed and it felt like
that was all we did, feed & pump from 10 until 4. It was an exhausting,
traumatic day. She still didn’t want to feed & screamed, with the lactation
consultant shoving my breast into her mouth.

That afternoon I had a bit of a breakdown.
What with constant interruptions from hospital staff & the breastfeeding,
it felt like things were spinning out of control.Over the past few days our baby had gone from a fairly
content baby to one who wouldn’t be put down & would rarely stop crying.
That night Nick stayed up all night with her so I could get some rest. During
one of the night feeds we found that she wasn’t sucking the breast, she’d
worked out that the milk was coming from the tube & just sucked that
instead. By the time the 5:00 feed rolled around we had decided that we were
not going to continue breastfeeding.

The decision to stop felt quite liberating.
No more pressure to make this work & no more hours of her screaming. It
couldn’t be good for her to be getting so worked up for such long periods of
time. The midwife who was with us Thursday afternoon & the one with us
Thursday night were both really supportive of our decision. There was no trying
to talk us out of it, they’d both seen what we’d gone through and felt we were
making the right decision. At her Friday weigh in she still hadn’t put on any
weight, but she hadn’t lost any either, confirming that we needed to be feeding
her better.

I continued to express, as this was working
and by Saturday night we were down to only one or two formula feeds a day. It
was disappointing how many midwives over the weekend were not supportive of our
decision, even when it was clear that she was mostly on breast milk, it was
just going into her mouth from a bottle, not a breast. Who really cares how
she’s fed, as long as she’s gaining weight (which by Saturday she had) and is
happy? And if we were exclusively formula feeding, then so what? As long as
she’s gaining weight & is happy.

Of course the lactation consultant didn’t give up with
her lectures about the benefits of breastfeeding, with weak arguments like
‘it’s easier’, um for whom? Not for my baby who refuses to suck the breast
properly. Not for me when it hurts like hell because she has to try latching a
million times without making it work. Bottle feeding means Nick can feed her. I
can’t miss night feeds because I need to express as well, but with Nick feeding
her while I express, the night feed times are considerably shorter. Cleaning a
few bottles & mixing formula is not hard work. Not when it means my baby is
happy & healthy.

While we were still in hospital we had to
keep a record of when she fed, how much and what for the hospital to prove we
weren’t starving her. During this time she fed every three hours and we woke
her for feeds if she was still sleeping. Now she feeds on demand during the
day, which can be twice an hour or once every three or four hours. At night she
wakes up every two and a half hours to be fed. We find changing her nappy then
feeding her is the best way to get her back to sleep quickly. I express with an
electric pump for fifteen minutes every three hours (sometimes every four but
by then my boobs are getting pretty full). I’ve found that if I don’t express
for fifteen minutes, my right boob isn’t properly drained and it starts to hurt.
A cloth soaked in Epsom Salts helps this but it is just best to express for the
fifteen minutes.

We were finally discharged a week after her
birth, though she wasn’t at her birth weight. We continued to be seen by a
lovely midwife (who bottle fed all three of her kids and they all somehow made
it through university and speak two languages) each day until she reached past
her birth weight. The midwife mentioned that the lactation consultant wanted to
see me again, but I just said no. Our system works fine. I have tried breastfeeding
again a few times since we’ve been home, but it’s been met with the same
response, screaming, not latching, frustration. Breastfeeding just doesn’t work
for all babies, especially babies who come too early.